


Blue as the Poison Arrow

by LordofLies



Category: OFF (Game)
Genre: Angst, Attempted Murder, Batterie - Freeform, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Suicide Attempt, real world AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-30
Updated: 2013-06-30
Packaged: 2017-12-16 15:21:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,881
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/863508
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LordofLies/pseuds/LordofLies
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>(In which the game is Hugo's coma nightmare, and in the real world things are complicated for everyone.)</p><p>Zacharie always believed that what parts of the Batter’s heart had not been torn from him by fate and fortune, he had torn out himself.  After's Hugo's diagnosis of leukaemia and the Batter's unsuccessful attempt to put himself and his son out of their misery, Zacharie is left to hold the Batter's shattered pieces together, but he is not without his own scars.  Can two broken souls really make a whole?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Blue as the Poison Arrow

In truth, Zacharie would say that the Batter had never quite been right since the death of his wife.  Their marriage had been a short one, but his love for Eloha had been passionate and fierce.  They had made the perfect family: the strong professional baseball player, the lovely, artistic wife, and the promising baby boy.

But Fate is a cruel mistress, as Zacharie knew only too well, and their happy marriage had been a short one.  Eloha had died in a car accident when Hugo was only four years old, leaving the Batter a widower and a single father.  Zacharie, as his long-time friend, had done his best to help raise the child, a task that became more and more difficult as Hugo grew older and more demanding.  The Batter had quit his job as a professional athlete and become a personal fitness trainer.  It was a stable source of income and one that did not require long periods of travel or absence, but in exchange for that security that Batter had sacrificed his lifelong dream.

Zacharie always believed that what parts of the Batter’s heart had not been torn from him by fate and fortune, he had torn out himself.

It was usually Zacharie who watched Hugo while the Batter was at work and Hugo was not in school.  His own sources of income were somewhat erratic, but the Batter always paid him for his time and when Zacharie was not entertaining Hugo he could work on projects of his own.  The boy always enjoyed watching him make masks.

Hugo was eight when he began to noticeably take ill.  He slept more, looked pale and tired, and had nightmares and fevers that would keep the Batter up all night while he sat at the boy’s bedside, stroking Hugo’s sweaty brow.  He developed a cough that never went away.  After a week, the Batter took him to the doctor, and it was not long before they made their diagnosis.

Hugo had leukaemia.

They began the chemotherapy immediately, but the doctors said that it had already advanced to a point where survival was unlikely, even with treatment.

Zacharie imagined what those first few weeks of treatment must have been like for the Batter.  He remembered the drinking and the silences, the long, heavy, vacant look in his friend’s eyes.  He tried to imagine going to bed each night to sound of Hugo’s coughing, knowing that each cough was a death rattle, that in a month or six he would be falling asleep to silence.  He tried to imagine going through each day with the knowledge that his child, the only piece of Eloha he had left, was dying slowly, painfully, and surely, and there was nothing in the world that he could do about it.  Some days it had seemed as though Hugo was already dead in the Batter’s cold, empty eyes.

When he tried to imagine how the Batter must have felt, his actions did not seem quite so unexpected, or even quite so cruel.  Perhaps it would have been better for Hugo to have died a quick death rather than a long and terrifying one.

But then Zacharie remembered the blood, and the limp, beaten body of the Batter’s child—the child that Zacharie had come to cherish as if he was his own—and he wondered how he could have found it in his heart to forgive such a thing.

He’d come too late.  When Zacharie had forced the door open the Batter had been slumped against the kitchen cabinets, soaked in his own blood, his wrists slit up and down.  He rushed in, checked for a pulse, and when he’d found one he ran to find Hugo.  The boy had been in his room, but in a moment it became clear to Zacharie what the Batter had intended.  His prized steel baseball bat lay on the floor, blood and hair plastered to the shaft.

Zacharie had been with the Batter, bandaging his slashed arms, when the EMTs had come to carry the two unconscious bodies away.  He’d been left standing in a blood-stained kitchen, unsure if either father or child would make it through the night.

Both of them had—though if that was a mercy, Zacharie was not so sure.  Hugo lay in a coma from which he would not wake, weakened by his illness and the chemo, and now suffering perhaps irreparable brain damage.  The Batter had recovered after several blood transfusions, but the guilt of what he had done weighed heavily upon him.

When Zacharie had been allowed in to see him, the first words out of his mouth were: “You should have let me die.”

“And then who would I swindle on a daily basis?”

“Don’t joke, Zacharie.  Nothing is funny anymore.”  He paused.  “I wish I were dead.”

“And that is why you are on suicide watch,” Zacharie answered, taking his seat beside the Batter.  They sat in silence for a time, before words began to tumble out of the Batter’s mouth.  He did not cry, but his words were slow and pained, as though he wanted nothing more than to remain silent but he could not bring himself to do so.

He’d thought it would be better if both of them just… no longer existed.  His life had been nothing but misery and exhaustion since Eloha had died.  He wasn’t cut out to be a father, not without her help.  God, how he missed her.  And then Hugo had gotten ill, and he’d realized something.  None of it mattered.  Not a damn thing.  Hugo would be dead in less than a year, no matter what he did or how he felt about it, and he would have nothing left.  Life was cruel and short he just wanted to turn it off.  He’d gotten himself drunk, so he wouldn’t have to think or feel, and he’d gotten his bat and come into Hugo’s room and…  The Batter closed his eyes and looked away, his breathing heavy.

Zacharie had said nothing.  What could he say?  I’m sorry?  Your son is in a coma now because of you?  Or maybe, you’re right, you should have died.  Nothing seemed appropriate, and nothing seemed wholly true, and so Zacharie said nothing.  The Batter could not see his expression, as he always wore a mask, but he could still get across his feelings well without a face.  Body language and inflection can speak volumes.

“Once you are well enough, there will be a trial.”

The Batter did not respond.

“In all likelihood I’ll be called up to speak at some point.  I’m your closest friend, I often took care of Hugo, and I found the two of you and called the ambulances.”

The Batter remained silent, then he spoke, “Do you think they’ll put me to death for this?”

Zacharie wanted to strangle that note of hopefulness out of his voice.

“To be honest?  No, I don’t think so.  They’ll probably do a psych evaluation.  They’ll take into account that you already lost your wife, and that your son was dying.  A murder-suicide attempt of a single parent and their terminally ill child?  They’ll pity you enough to let you off easy.”  The Batter blinked dully at him.

“Then I’ll make them not pity me.  I’ll tell them I hated the brat, I wanted him dead.  What good is a stupid, sick child?  I wanted to kill him.  It made me happy.  I—”  Zacharie reached over and took the Batter’s hand.  He squeezed it hard, nails digging into the Batter’s pale skin.

“Shut up.  I can read your pain all over your face.  You’d never pull it off; you’d just make yourself look even more desperate.  They wouldn’t put you down; they’d lock you up even tighter.”  The Batter turned away again.

“If you truly want to die, my friend,” Zacharie whispered, “Then play their game.  Do the trial, fill whatever sentence they give you, and once you’re out, then you can kill yourself—on your own terms.”  The Batter turned to look back at Zacharie.

“Zacharie…” he said, his blue eyes filled with shock and…gratitude.  “Thank you.”

Zacharie wanted to strike him, wanted to grab him by the shoulders and shake him until he realized that his life still had value.  Were Eloha and Hugo really the only things in his life that had kept him going?  Would life be so wholly without joy once they were gone?  What about Zacharie?  What about the friend who had never left his side, even when he had been at his lowest?  What would that friend do if the Batter was gone?  Did he truly understand what it was to have _nothing_ in this world?

“I will be whatever you need for however long you need it,” Zacharie promised him.  The Batter closed his eyes and smiled.  Zacharie hadn’t seen him smile in a long time.  _Can’t you see that you are loved?_ He wondered to himself.

Xxx

The trial was long and gruelling.  The Batter managed to maintain his composure through the entire ordeal, and was not required to speak much.  Most of the evidence spoke for itself.  Zacharie, on the other hand, was called up to speak quite a bit, and he tried to paint as sympathetic picture of the Batter as he could.  The defence was playing the mental illness card, which was aided by a history of depression and alcoholism in the Batter’s family.  By far the worst part of the trial had been when the prosecution brought up the point that the Batter had not slipped Hugo sleeping pills or even tried to quickly cut his throat—he had quite literally beaten his son bloody and unconscious with a metal bat.  That showed aggression and cruelty, and Zacharie had watched the jury waver.  But despite the trial being long and tumultuous, the jury eventually retired and announced their verdict.

Guilty, of course.  But the sentence was lenient.  Sixty days in a supervised psychiatric program, then five years parole.  He was lucky to have escaped prison, but perhaps it was because the whole room was thinking what no one would say—that even if Hugo woke up from his coma, the cancer would kill him before his father had even served a six-month sentence.

It did not escape Zacharie that the Batter might never see his son again.  If this was their idea of mercy, it was a cruel one.

Xxx

Zacharie visited Hugo often during the Batter’s two-month internment.  He read the child stories and made him promises that when Hugo woke up, they would all bake cakes and go to an amusement park together to ride the roller coasters and pedalos.  But Hugo never woke.

The day the Batter was released Zacharie was at the hospital, sitting at Hugo’s bedside and sketching out designs for a new mask.

“You were always a better father to him than I was,” the Batter said from the doorway, catching the masked man’s attention.  Zacharie got up and embraced his friend, who he had not seen since the trial.  The Batter looked…better.  He looked tired, but the sickly hue was mostly gone from his skin and his breath no longer smelled like alcohol.  His eyes, though, they looked worse, and Zacharie knew that the Batter was not, in any way that mattered, better.

“I didn’t think I would see you here so soon.”

“There’s been little else on my mind.”

Zacharie pulled up another chair so that the Batter could join him at Hugo’s side, but he just shook his head and remained in the doorway.  He gazed at Hugo with a mix of fear and shame.

“I can’t…”

Zacharie didn’t press him.  How must it feel to once again be reunited with the child you had tried to bludgeon to death?  The Batter was being faced with the consequences of his actions for the first time, and it was eating him alive.

Zacharie wondered, not for the first time, if there was something wrong with him for not hating the Batter for what he had done—for not even being angry with him.  It was not that he did not love Hugo—he did—or that he believed what the Batter had done was in any way right or justified—he didn’t.  He simply wasn’t angry.  That was not to say he did not get angry with the Batter, just that, for some reason, he did not hate the Batter or feel anger towards him for the horrific things he had done that night. 

Zacharie understood too well what it was like to feel as though it would be better just to die than face the hardship of living.  He saw that same vacancy in the Batter’s eyes that he had once seen in the mirror.  It was the look of a man who considered himself dead, who had no reason for living anymore, who had completely surrendered himself to the greater forces of the world.  It was that look that Zacharie hated more than anything, it was that surrender that got under his skin and made his blood boil.  It was that dead look in the Batter’s eyes that made him want put a blade under the other man’s skin, show him his own blood, smear it on his face, and prove to him he was _still alive_ and that was _important_.  There are possibilities when you are alive.  There are none when you are dead.

“It’s getting late,” Zacharie said, folding up his sketchbook.  The Batter tore his gaze from the sleeping form of his child and towards the window, where the horizon was a bleeding red sunset.

“Yes.”

“Do you have a place to stay?”  The Batter looked confused for a moment.

“I was going to stay at the motel by the turnpike.”

“Stay at my place.”

“I don’t want to inconvenience you.”

Zacharie laughed. “Oh it’s too late for that, my friend.  I’m in far too deep.  Come on, we can come back tomorrow.” 

Slowly, the Batter nodded, and followed Zacharie out of the room.  He tossed one more look at Hugo as they left.  The nurse who had been standing outside the room passed them on her way into Hugo’s room.  The look she gave the Batter has they passed was so full of hate that the Batter visibly flinched and quickened his pace so as to get away from this place of shame and guilt and horror.  Zacharie twined his fingers with the Batter’s, which gave him some comfort.  It calmed him down to give up control and just let himself be led.

xxx

It did not take long to get back to Zacharie’s apartment.  The familiar surroundings made the Batter feel at once at ease and uneasy.  Had he been happy once?  It was hard to recall anything but the constant gnawing emptiness chewing him up from the inside.  Zacharie plopped down onto the couch and pulled his sketchpad back out of his backpack.

“There’s some leftover rice and beans in the fridge if you’re hungry,” he said.  The Batter nodded.  He wasn’t hungry.  Instead of going over to the kitchen he hovered around Zacharie, feeling aimless.

“What are you drawing?” the Batter asked, clearly desperate to break the silence.  Zacharie looked up briefly, his mask making any reading of emotion impossible.

“A new mask, one based off dear Pablo.”

“My cat?” the Batter asked, surprised.

“Yes.  Since you’ve been in no position to, I’ve been taking care of him.”

“Oh.”  The Batter looked uncomfortable.  “Thank you.”

“It’s no problem.  Cats are very companionable creatures.  We have an agreement.”

“An agreement?”  The Batter raised an eyebrow.

“Yes.  I provide him with food, water, and small gestures of affection each day, and in return he guards the house, brings me small tributes of mice and birds, and offers his own small gestures of affection.  He’s also an effective heat-source.”

The barest hint of a smile graced the Batter’s lips, and under his mask Zacharie smiled back.  There was a spark of life still in there, and he was determined to reignite it.

“You should smile more often, my friend,” Zacharie murmured.  The Batter’s face fell suddenly, and grew hard.

“How can I?” he asked, “When my son is lying in a hospital bed and I put him there?”  Zacharie put down his sketchpad and folded his hands across his lap.

“We must live with the consequences of our actions.  That you are ashamed of what you have done is a good thing.  It means you have a conscience.  Would you rather that you felt nothing at all?  That you really were a cold and heartless person who would beat a child to death without a moment’s hesitation, without a shred of regret?”

“Yes,” the Batter replied, his tone even and apathetic.  “Anything is better than this.  Seeing him is hell.”

“Then why did you go?” Zacharie asked, his temper rising.

“There was nothing else I could do.  I had to.  I have nothing but this pain.”

Zacharie got to his feet.

“You have only pain because that is what you choose to have.  You are so consumed with your guilt that you have resigned yourself to your suffering.  You do not wish to recover from this.”  The Batter gazed at him levelly; his eyes looked hollow.

“You’re right.  I don’t want to recover.  I’ll keep visiting until Hugo is dead, and then I’ll join my wife and son.”

“Together in the void,” Zacharie hissed.

“I don’t expect you to understand, and I don’t need you to.”

“Oh, I understand,” Zacharie snapped, “You’re selfish!  But then again, you always have been.”  The Batter seemed taken aback by this, so Zacharie kept pushing.  “You wanted to give up when you lost Eloha, but Hugo was holding you back!  You could have brought him to the doctors earlier, when he first started showing signs of illness.  You could have discovered he was sick when there was still time to save him.  Or even if you couldn’t have done that, you could have worked to make his last months happy.  Instead, as soon as you heard that his illness was terminal you drowned yourself in cheap beer, said cruel things to him, and made him afraid!  You filled your son’s last waking weeks of life with terror, and you did it because you were selfish!”

The Batter flinched as if Zacharie had slapped him.  “I didn’t…”

“You didn’t what?  Didn’t think?  Didn’t care?  You’re right, you know.  You were a shit father.  You’ve never cared about anyone but yourself.”  A hint of anger flickered across the Batter’s face.

“I cared about Eloha.”

“You worshipped her,” Zacharie retorted.  “There’s a difference.  She was a goddess and you prayed at her temple until she took notice of you.  You showered her with tribute so you could bask in her praise and her body.  You never saw her as a person; you never saw her flaws or gave her what she really needed.”

“What are you saying?”

“You’re as responsible for her death as you will be for Hugo’s!”

“You’re full of shit,” the Batter whispered, his face full of fear.

“You thought that car crash was an accident?  She was so intoxicated, it’s a wonder she got the car started and made it down the street.  It was suicide, Batter.  Your wife killed herself.”  The Batter slid down onto the couch, eyes wide and dry, breathing laboured.

“No.  No, she couldn’t have.  She wouldn’t have.”

“She did.  She was depressed, and you never noticed.  You were always gone, never there to see her when she was at her worst.  I was there, Batter.  I saw her when she screamed and threw dishes, bottles, clocks—anything she could get her hands on.  I rushed Hugo out of that house more times than once.  Honestly, it’s a wonder he lived this long, with parents like you two.”

“You’re a fucking liar,” the Batter whispered as tears began to drip from rims of his eyes.

“I protected that boy from his psychotic mother and negligent father as best I could, and yet you still managed to best me.  So congratulations, you have successfully destroyed your family one person at a time.  Few can say as much.”

“I was always good to her!”  The Batter cried.  Zacharie laughed, short and harsh.

“You never listened when she called for you.  You never heard her when she needed it.  You never said the right thing, Batter.  Not ever.  You drove her into that car crash as much as her depression did.”

“Shut the fuck up about her!” the Batter roared, leaping to his feet, tears streaking down his face.  “You don’t know anything!”  The swing of his fist was mechanical, unavoidable, fuelled by anger and hatred and grief so strong the Batter crumpled beneath it.  The side of his fist caught Zacharie in the jaw and sent the other man reeling to the floor.  As soon as he was down, the Batter lunged at him.  Zacharie rolled onto his back and tried to kick his assailant, but the Batter was stronger, bulkier, and it didn’t take him long to pin the masked man to the floor.

Zacharie laughed and tried to move his arms, but the Batter crouched over him, straddling his stomach and pinning his hands to the floor by the wrists.

“Even after two months in the psych ward you’ve still got the moves, eh?”

“Shut up,” the Batter growled, tightening his grip on Zacharie’s wrists.

“Ooh, being a little rough, don’t you think?  Were you ever like this with Eloha?  Did you pin her down and fuck her like a whore—“

The Batter’s fist collided with the side of Zacharie’s face again, and again, and again.  With his arms now free as the Batter alternated punching with his right and left fists, Zacharie grabbed the front of his shirt and pulled him down hard, knocking their heads together.  The Batter cursed and clutched his head while Zacharie worked his jaw, grimacing at the clicking noise it made and the taste of blood in his mouth.

“Fuck you,” the Batter spat, and ripped off Zacharie’s mask.

Zacharie sneered, looking up at the Batter and feeling somewhat vulnerable without his mask.  The Batter had seen his face before, but only once or twice, and always briefly.  His dark skin was crisscrossed with a mess of uneven pink scars that covered ever part of his face and neck.  There wasn’t a square centimetre of skin that was undamaged.

There was a brief pause, and Zacharie saw something like pity flicker across the Batter’s face.  _No_ , Zacharie thought fiercely, _don’t you dare_.

“You never answered my question,” Zacharie said, and for a moment the Batter looked confused.  “Was Eloha quiet when you fucked her, or was she a screamer?”

The Batter snarled and raised a hand to strike him again, but Zacharie was quick.  He twisted his arms around the Batter’s to keep them in place, and used them as leverage to grind himself up against the Batter’s ass.  The Batter gasped, and went rigid.

“What are you doing?” he whispered.  Zacharie chuckled, untangling their arms so he could loop his around the Batter’s neck, forcing the other man to put his hands down on the ground for balance.

“I’m trying,” he said, with a thrust of his hips, “to make you angry.”

Zacharie leaned up and bit the Batter’s neck, hard.  The Batter cried out and reached up to pry Zacharie’s arms off his neck and slam them back against the floor.  Zacharie laughed again and flecks of blood stung the Batter’s eyes.  He snarled, pressing himself down against Zacharie to take away any leverage the other man might have.  As Zacharie continued to thrust and grind against him, the Batter could feel himself getting hard.  Zacharie clearly was already.  He felt dizzy and hot.  His blood was boiling.  He was just so…angry.  And it was Zacharie’s fault.  He wanted to hurt him, wanted to hold him down and squeeze his arms until they snapped like twigs and bite his throat until he felt blood gush into his mouth and kiss him until his lips were bruised and wet and and…

“What are you doing to me?” the Batter groaned as Zacharie squirmed and panted beneath him.  Every touch felt like an electric shock on his skin.  He crushed their lips together, forcing his tongue into Zacharie’s mouth as the other man heaved and gasped and made slow thrusts against the Batter’s belly.  They kissed heavily and roughly and finally the Batter pulled back to see Zacharie’s lips smeared with blood and drool.  The sight made his pants tighter, and it occurred to him that he was hot and wearing too many clothes.

While Zacharie lay on the floor trying to catch his breath the Batter pulled off his shirt and worked at undoing his pants.  By the time he’d tossed his belt aside and unzipped the front of his pants Zacharie had suddenly sat up, and before the Batter realized what was happening, he was on his back with Zacharie looming over him.  There was a predatory look in the masked man’s eyes that made the muscles in the Batter’s belly tighten.

“Why are you doing this?” the Batter asked, but Zacharie only sneered at him.  The masked man hooked his fingers over the top of the Batter’s underwear and pulled them down, along with his pants.  The batter’s cock, flushed and already dripping, sprang free.  He gasped at the rush of cool air against his sensitive skin.  Zacharie smirked, and slid his hands up the Batter’s thighs.  The light touches made the Batter tremble, and he let his head fall back and focused on breathing.  He could feel Zacharie’s fingers drifting along the insides if his thighs, up towards the apex of his legs.  He let out a low whine as the hands passed by his crotch completely and moved up to his stomach.  He was about to say something when he felt a puff of warm air against the head of his cock.  The Batter’s blood froze with realization and he lifted his head to see Zacharie’s open mouth a hairsbreadth away from his erection.

“Zachar—oh!” he gasped when warm lips enveloped the head of his cock.  Zacharie sucked lightly, running his tongue along the lower rim, teasing into the slit.  The Batter cried out, nails digging into the carpet as his body convulsed and his muscles tightened.  Zacharie hummed pleasantly before engulfing the Batter’s length as much as he could without choking himself.  The Batter could feel the pressure building in his lower belly, the tightness in his balls.  He longed for release, more than simply of a sexual nature, but perhaps Zacharie had realized that before even he had. 

Zacharie’s mouth felt so much like heaven it had to be sin.  Slick and warm, Zacharie slid up and down the Batter’s cock, bringing it in as deep as he could before swallowing.  The constriction around the head of his cock made the Batter cry out.  He lay back against the floor with his legs drawn up, his pants still hanging off one foot and his hands fisted in Zacharie’s unruly black hair as the other man’s head bobbed between his thighs.  Drool trickled out of the corner of his mouth as Zacharie swallowed again; the soft, velvet lining of his throat slid and contracted around the Batter’s hard flesh like the sweetest vice.

“Zacharie, Zacharie, ahhh…” the Batter closed his eyes and whimpered as the other man bobbed his head up and down, sucking hard.  He felt Zacharie wipe some of the drool off his chin with a finger, and then suddenly there was a pressure at his entrance.  His eyes flew open and he gasped as the tip of Zacharie’s finger, wet with his own saliva, breached him.

“Ugh, God!” the Batter cried.  He felt he pressure building, building, ready to burst.  Zacharie seemed to sense how close he was, and swallowed his cock down deeper, squeezing the swollen head in the tight entrance of his throat.  With a sobbing cry, the Batter came, and Zacharie let his throat relax, swallowing down most of the come.  He slid his lips from the Batter’s cock with a soft pop and sat there panting, drool and semen dripping down his chin.

The Batter lay on the floor, sticky with sweat and breathing heavily.  He hadn’t had sex in…well, quite a long time.  In the post-orgasm haze of his mind, he remembered that he should make sure that Zacharie finished as well.  On shaky arms the Batter raised himself up, to see that at some point during that (incredible) blowjob Zacharie had gotten his own pants undone and was now releasing his hold from his own softening cock.  There was semen on the carpet and on the insides of the Batter’s legs.  With a shudder, he willed himself not to become aroused again.

“Why?” the Batter asked, as sense and rationality slowly returned to him.  “Why did you do that?  Why say all those things and then…  then have sex with me?”  Zacharie rose to his feet, his pants undone and his shirt a mess.  He walked over to his mask, wiped his face with the back of his hand, and put it back on.  Then he sat down on the floor beside the Batter.

“I wanted you to feel alive again.”

“I am alive.”

Zacharie laughed.  “Says the walking the corpse!  That would make a good film, eh Batter?  A zombie that doesn’t even realize he’s dead.  Ha ha ha.”

“Zacharie,” the Batter frowned, “Talk to me.”  The other man grew quiet.

“I don’t blame you for what you did,” Zacharie admitted, after a long pause.  “I’m not angry that you tried to kill Hugo, but it infuriates me to see that you have given up.”  The Batter just stared at him.  He didn’t know what to think, or say.

“And I thought I was the one with problems.”

Zacharie laughed again, a little more honestly.  “Between the two of us, we’ll never need another.”

“Was that all true, what you said about Eloha?” the Batter asked tentatively.  Zacharie sighed.

“No.  It wasn’t.  I was just trying to rile you up.  Eloha’s death was a tragic accident.  I do believe she loved you with all her heart.”  The Batter sighed, and looked up at the ceiling.  There was a long silence.

“I’ve been unfair to you,” the Batter said eventually.  “You were right.  I have been selfish.  Everything I’ve done in the past few years, ever since I lost Eloha, has been selfish.  I should have been a better father, and I should have been a better friend.”

“You still can be.”

“I can’t.”

“Why not?  Because you’re going to kill yourself?” Zacharie snapped.

“No,” the Batter said, looking hurt.  “Because Hugo may never wake up and…I don’t think we are quite friends anymore.”

Zacharie felt his heart stop.  God, he’d fucked it up.  He’d fucked it all up.  The Batter would never speak to him again.

“What do you mean?” he forced out.

“I mean that after tonight,” he looked around for a moment at the state of the room and themselves, “I think we crossed a line somewhere.”  The Batter ran his fingers aimlessly through the carpet.  “Tell me, Zacharie, have you felt this way about me for a long time?”

“Ever since we met,” the masked man admitted.  The Batter smiled.

“How did you know I wouldn’t reject you?”

“I know more about you than you think I do.”

“Why did you never say anything before?”

“You needed someone stable and reliable more than you needed a lover.”

“And now?”

“Now you need someone to remind you why life is worth living,” Zacharie said, leaning in towards him.

“And you think that someone is you?” the Batter murmured, brushing his nose against Zacharie’s tangled black hair.  He breathed deeply, inhaling the scents of musk and sex and _Zacharie_.

“I’m the only one you have, friend.  And you are all that I have.  What a sad little pair we are.”

“Mmmm,” the Batter murmured, moving down to kiss the side of Zacharie’s neck.  Zacharie pulled away and took the Batter’s face in his hands.

“Let me see your eyes.”  The Batter looked up at his friend, blinking lazily.  He had the bluest eyes that Zacharie had ever seen, like bursts of summer sky or crystals lying in forgotten pools.  They were as blue as the emperor butterfly and the blue cornflower; blue as the waters of Capri and the skin of the poison arrow frog.  You could lose yourself in eyes that blue.

Zacharie almost had, on more than one occasion.  They were hypnotic and intense, but lately their vibrancy had been muted.  They seemed grey and colourless, as the though the Batter’s very soul were sick.  And that’s what this was, wasn’t it?  It was a sickness of heart that had sapped the Batter’s will to live, the hue from his eyes and the fire in his every step and gesture.  But that spark was still there, and Zacharie was determined to reignite it, to feed the flames of the Batter’s life-force, give him a purpose again and help him recover from the terrible losses he had suffered—and was soon to suffer.

It would not be easy, though.  Of this, Zachary was sure.  Already, the angry light that had illuminated the Batter’s face during their fight had faded.  How quickly his work was undone!

 _No, not undone_ , he reminded himself.  Merely overshadowed.

“What do you see?” the Batter asked, unable to read Zacharie’s expression behind his mask.  Zacharie smoothed his thumbs over the batter’s cheekbones and down the hollows of his cheeks to the hard line of his jaw.

“I see a weary man without a cause.”  The Batter closed his eyes and knit his brows.  “And I see a man more important than anything in this world.  I see a man who has done wrong for the sake of doing right.  I see a man who has made mistakes.  But I do not let those mistakes define him.  Your life is one worth living, my friend.  Do not belittle that or try to convince yourself otherwise, for I will prove to you, as many times as I need to, that you are wrong.”

The Batter’s lip trembled, as though he did not know whether to smile or frown.  Zacharie lifted up his mask to kiss the tip of the Batter’s nose.

“I’m tired,” the Batter said at last, the words coming out with difficulty.  Zacharie nodded, and drew the Batter to his feet.  He led the other man, still naked, to his bed.  The Batter lay down, and Zacharie, after he had pulled off his own clothes and put the mask aside, got into bed with him and pulled the covers over the both of them.  They fell asleep to the sounds of each other breathing—two damaged souls entwined in the darkness, uncertain of whether their next steps would fall on solid ground or open air.


End file.
